The Age Of Distraction

It's impossible to ignore the reality of our Age of Distraction: It is increasingly difficult to hold anyone's attention, even those that love you, because we've all become addicted to the fix of something - anything - new that might be better or more interesting than what you're saying to me.

Look at your own behavior. Aren't you looking at pictures on your smartphone while your spouse is talking to you? Aren't you scrolling through your FB feed while your child drones on about her school day?

Each of us is interested only in what we're interested in and because there are so many distractions available to us, our tolerance for anything boring is approaching zero.

When you're speaking to me on the air, you can do anything but bore me.

That's why PPM seems so punishing.

If you're not actively engaging me with content I care about, you will lose me.

So how do you handle that when you have hundreds of thousands of different listeners, each of whom cares about only what they individually care about?

If you don't have a unique piece of content, or viewpoint on the issue of the day, or information I want to hear, you're going to lose me.

If what you're saying every break is not memorable enough to repeat, you're probably wasting my time.

You need to set the bar for your content higher than it's been.

The Age of Conversational radio is gone and you will be too if you don't adapt, and quickly.